Post-College Inklings

Before moving to Washington, I was sure that this summer was going to be an exciting one. I had decided to apply for WAIP for many reasons, but as I have been living and working in D.C., I have found many more reasons to be happy about my decision to become a WAIP-er than I would have thought. Perhaps the biggest reason is that coming here has allowed me to experience living life in a post-college world without actually having to enter that world full force yet.

                                                   

It has been wonderful to come to a place that seemed so familiar to me, yet was missing much of what makes Columbus, Ohio my home. I have family nearby in Alexandria and Harpers Ferry, but with the schedule of the program and my own interests I knew that I would not see them much, if at all. I came to Washington with no support system, no real friends, and no idea what I would be walking into on my first day of work: I could have easily ended up hating what I was doing or who I was working with. I was entering a city that I believed I knew so well, but really had yet to be known by me at all.

There is the side of D.C. that the tourists tend to see: the glimmering, stoic, regal stature of a city that has long known the light of fame and the influence of power. But there is another side of the city: one that is dark, broken, and full of the malfunctions that plague everywhere else that people reside. It is this latter kind of description that I believe many D.C.-ers find is closer to the reality of where they call home. Consequently, I believe that this understanding is only one that can arise when a person has created a life inside its borders.

Perhaps, the word ‘life’ as it was just used is a bit loaded; by life I most certainly mean establishing (or attempting to establish) all of those things that I need in order to feel like I am home. It is most certainly not just living day to day with a numbness to the passage of time. It is when you have regained a job, a place to relax, a place to go and have fun, a place to lay your head at night, a place to worship, and a group of people whom you willingly call friends that a new ‘life’ might be considered to have been created once more.

For me, it is precisely these things that have helped D.C. become a home for me. However, it is the act of making these things a reality where I had nothing before that is the greatest gift that this program has given me. WAIP has given me the chance to prove to myself that stepping out into the wide-world after OSU is not only possible, but where I am ready to be.

-By: Eric Vinyard